Sponsors (43)
Official title: To expand arts education, and for other purposes.
Introduced March 31, 2025 by Suzanne Bonamici · Last progress March 31, 2025
The bill expands arts education, provider training, research, and rehabilitative arts programs to improve child development, equity, and reentry outcomes, but does so at the cost of increased fiscal and administrative burdens and risks uneven implementation or diversion of existing services if new funding is not provided.
Students — especially those in high-poverty and underserved schools: increased access to sequenced arts classes, expanded afterschool/summer arts programming, and clearer curricular planning that can broaden learning opportunities and enrichment.
Children in CCDBG-funded child care, including children with disabilities: providers will receive more prescriptive, provider-led training on social, emotional, physical, adaptive, communication, and cognitive development (plus nutrition and activity guidance), improving inclusion and developmental supports in early care settings.
Policymakers, districts, and schools: standardized data (state report cards and resumed NAEP arts assessments) and funded research will provide clearer, comparable evidence on arts access, integration, and what works — improving resource targeting and equity analysis.
Taxpayers, state and local governments, school districts, and providers: the bill will increase costs (training, hiring arts educators, conducting NAEP assessments, and funding expanded research), creating sizeable new fiscal demands unless additional funds are provided.
States, districts, schools, and grantees (especially small or rural ones): added compliance, data collection, reporting, planning, and program-revision requirements will increase administrative burdens and staff time.
Low-income families, children, and justice-involved participants: if the bill is not accompanied by new funding, states and grantees may redirect existing dollars toward training, arts programs, or research — reducing funds available for direct childcare subsidies, juvenile services, or other essential supports.
Based on analysis of 5 sections of legislative text.
Integrates arts education across CCDBG, ESEA, juvenile justice, reentry programs, and federal education research and NAEP assessment requirements.
Adds arts education and creative learning into multiple federal child care, K–12, juvenile justice, reentry, and education research programs. The bill revises training requirements for early childhood providers, requires states and local education agencies to plan for and report on arts instruction, expands allowable uses and partnerships to support arts teachers and arts integration, includes arts in juvenile justice coordination and reentry programs, and directs federal education research and NAEP to include arts measures and studies. The changes amend existing statutes to make arts education a formal priority across Child Care and Development Block Grant programs, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, juvenile justice planning and reentry programming, and federal education research and assessment activities. Many provisions require updated state and local plans, reporting, professional development, and research rather than creating a standalone new grant program or new appropriations authority.